If You Like, You’ll Love: Book Recommendations

Have you ever had that moment when you finish an AMAZING book, and have no idea what to read next? You feel like you’ll never find a book that’s this amazing ever again but never fear, book-loving friends, we have some amazing book recommendations for you based on some of the biggest books in the past few years!

If You Liked:

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

You’ll Love:

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

A victorian epic transplanted to Japan, following a Korean family of immigrants through eight decades and four generations.

Longlisted for the National Book Award. Yeongdo, Korea 1911. A club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then a Christian minister offers a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife. Following a man she barely knows to a hostile country where she has no friends and no home, Sunja’s salvation is just the beginning of her story.

If You Liked:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanigihara

You’ll Love:

My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent

At 14, Turtle Alveston knows the use of every gun on her wall;
That chaos is coming and only the strong will survive it;
That her daddy loves her more than anything else in this world.
And he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her with him.

She doesn’t know why she feels so different from the other girls at school;
Why the line between love and pain can be so hard to see;
Why making a friend may be the bravest and most terrifying thing she has ever done
And what her daddy will do when he finds out …

If You Liked:

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

You’ll Love:

Saga Land by Kari Gislason and Richard Fidler

Broadcaster Richard Fidler and author Kári Gíslason are good friends. They share a deep attachment to the sagas of Iceland – the true stories of the first Viking families who settled on that remote island in the Middle Ages.These are tales of blood feuds, of dangerous women, and people who are compelled to kill the ones they love the most. The sagas are among the greatest stories ever written, but the identity of their authors is largely unknown.

Together, Richard and Kári travel across Iceland, to the places where the sagas unfolded a thousand years ago. They cross fields, streams and fjords to immerse themselves in the folklore of this fiercely beautiful island. And there is another mission: to resolve a longstanding family mystery – a gift from Kari’s Icelandic father that might connect him to the greatest of the saga authors

If You Liked:

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

You’ll Love:

Worlds of You by Beau Taplin

Think of Beau Taplin as capturing the essence of love and heartbreak, challenges and paradoxes, yearning and fulfilment, and attaching that to magical, majestic life. Beautiful, inspiring and empowering, Beau Taplin’s poems sweep readers away on a journey of emotion. When you need advice, wisdom, something for your soul, Beau offers insight and balm.

If You Liked:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

You’ll Love:

The River Sings by Sandra Leigh Price

London, 1825: Eglantine has always had an eye for the shine. Born the same day as the young princess destined to be queen, Eglantine has an altogether different path ahead of her, strewn with the glittering waste of her father’s ambitions. Her mysteriously prosperous father, Mr Amberline Stark, is a man of great expectations. He coaxes her to follow in his footsteps, making picking pockets a delightful parlour game which they play in their fine house by the Thames. Eglantine’s life before her arrival at the house remains a mystery, her memories wrapped up in a small doll she keeps close to her, and with it the fragmentary recollections of her mother.

Birth and death, love and sadness, love knots and cut ties, quicksilver and shine, old worlds and new beginnings, Sandra Leigh Price weaves another gritty and beguiling story that will enchant and delight readers.

If You Liked:

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

You’ll Love:

The Lucky One by Caroline Overington

An old castle…

For more than 150 years, a grand house known as Alden Castle has stood proudly in the rolling hills of California’s wine country, home to a family weighed down by secrets and debt.

A fresh body…

When the castle is sold, billionaire developers move in, only to discover one skeleton after another – including a fresh corpse – rotting in the old family cemetery.

An unsolved mystery…

As three generations of the well-respected Alden-Stowe family come under scrutiny, police unearth a twisted web of rivalries, alliances, deceit, and treachery.

A gold-digger wife, a demented patriarch, a daughter in the grip of first love … Who has lied? Who will survive? And who, amidst all the horror and betrayal, is the lucky one?

If You Liked:

The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

You’ll Love:

F*ck Feelings by Dr. Michael Bennett With Sarah Bennett

You aren’t going to suddenly start loving yourself. You aren’t going to just become the Best Version of Yourself. You can’t stop your dad drinking, or your rubbish boyfriend from breaking up with you.
Fact is, there are some things you just can’t change, and will become miserable trying.
Instead, Harvard-educated psychiatrist of 30 years Michael Bennett and his comedian daughter, Sarah, show you how to:
• Stop overthinking
• Make smarter decisions so you can manage whatever life throws at you
• Stick to your values when good luck is nowhere to be found
• Come away from bad situations with your self-respect and sanity intact

They may not promise lifelong happiness, but they do guarantee strength, pride, and a sense of humour.

 If You Liked:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

You’ll Love:

Storyland by Catherine McKinnon

Set on the banks of Lake Illawarra and spanning four centuries, Storyland is a unique and compelling novel of people and place – which tells in essence the story of Australia. Told in an unfurling narrative of interlinking stories, in a style reminiscent of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, McKinnon weaves together the stories of Will Martin together with the stories of four others: a desperate ex-convict, Hawker, who commits an act of terrible brutality; Lola, who in 1900 runs a dairy farm on the Illawarra with her brother and sister, when they come under suspicion for a crime they did not commit; Bel, a young girl who goes on a rafting adventure with her friends in 1998 and is unexpectedly caught up in violent events; and in 2033, Nada, who sees her world start to crumble apart. Intriguingly, all these characters are all connected – not only through the same land and water they inhabit over the decades, but also by tendrils of blood, history, memory and property…

Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash